With a Little....

Ignore the random underlines. Again. Still.

Part 2!! You didn't know I was doing a To Be Continued...did you? I didn't either, so we're completely on the same page. It's sort of like the ending to Back to the Future...they didn't exactly know it would be a trilogy, but they left it open just in case. If you're wondering, unfortunately Crispin Glover isn't in my Part 2, either. Sad, I realize.

No, this blog isn't about Back to the Future.

I'm back to friendship and connections. On a recent morning having coffee with my mother, she broke out some insane wisdom and understanding. For a minute I thought, "has she become a Buddhist, or has she just started quoting those Buddhist passages I see sometimes on Facebook?"

We were talking about friendship, and the lengths that real friends should go to in order to help one another. She said something along the lines of "Inconvenience is temporary. If you let a little inconvenience stop you from helping a friend, you're saying that a temporary feeling of discomfort is too much for you to withstand, so you aren't going to help them. What kind of a friend does that?" I'm paraphrasing. I was tired and on my first coffee, so I didn't take the clearest mental notes. She was much more eloquent than this.

Commenting in this manner was timely, because I have been pondering ephemeral moments of importance. When I said I realized that essentially everything is impermanent, everything started to make sense for me. Taking on temporary inconveniences in order to help someone you love goes hand in hand with this idea. When you look at it like that, the word "inconvenience" diminishes. "Opportunity" becomes more pertinent.

I have the opportunity at times to help my friends, and I'm more grateful for that than almost anything. I wouldn't trade my moments of inconvenience for the world, and I realize that my friends having endured inconvenience for me is the greatest gift I have ever received. Some of the very best moments in my friendships have been when I was the one to receive the "help me" call in the middle of the night for a drunk pick up, for a run to the hospital, for a...hmmm hmmm...alibi.   Not because I wanted see my friends in those positions, but because I was trusted enough to be the one to see them while vulnerable.


Now, where's the Skeptic? Great question. Your humble narrator is skeptical about many, many things, but on this particular topic, I have zero cynicism. So shoot me. Point being...I get by with a little help from my friends, but also...with a little help TO my friends.


Now for the full song, with the amazing, crazy Mr. Cocker. Man, I love this song.



Skeptically Yours.

...Help From My Friends....

Blogger is still randomly inserting underlines. Ignore!

I feel very 1967 these days. I have enjoyed multiple nights of cross-legged-on-the-floor-listening-to-records, comfortable at home with my mother, my friends, and my pets. Very few moments in life yield an "in the moment" feeling, but recently, I've been able to tap into that sensation and see the connection between people without over analyzing ulterior motives. I marvel at the extraordinary efforts that some people will make to create and maintain friendships, to connect, and while I've never had many friends, the ones I DO have are the best of the best.


I once became the black sheep of a corporate meeting by commenting about a marketing strategy for "connected customers", saying something along the lines of, "the greatest tragedy of mankind is that we are infinitely connected, but oftentimes feel so isolated." The reaction I got was something like this: BLINK BLINK, BLINK BLINK, moving on.

The skeptic in me usually adds a tagline every time I feel connected, saying "yes, but it's fleeting." The truth in this, that moments and even deep connections may very well be temporary, used to make me sad. These days I look back on everything in my life that meant something and realize that the most worthwhile, and most transcendent were brief but bold, and while I may be nostalgic, it no longer causes despondency.

Maybe its a little dark, but it makes sense to me that as death is an integral part of life and renewal, the very notion of our own mortality makes everything brief, and somehow then...brighter, bigger. Each connection that occurs, dies, is reborn, is changed...these connections are no less real or immense simply because of their brevity.

It reminds me of the first scene I remember openly crying during...and you can probably guess, it had to do with the sentiment attached to a vehicle. It's a scene from The Wonder Years, when their trusty Dodge Station Wagon* finally gives up the ghost. The montage following broke my heart when I first watched, somewhere in 1988. I watch it now and realize it's because I saw that impermanence is unavoidable, and that somewhere years down the road, we will all play montages like this one. Maybe that's why I connect with the movie Stand By Me also, because it makes it clear that even though these particular relationships were momentary, it made them no less important. They were epic. (Pertinent scene starts at 3:20 in the clip below).  And yes....the Joe Cocker version of "With a Little Help From my Friends" is on my Top Ten Best Covers List.

I'm not saying there isn't a permanence that can exist, I have lifelong relationships.  Just that...the small moments existing in transitory interactions mean just as much as the grand gestures elsewhere.  Maybe more.


So in this moment of nostalgia, I'd like to state a simple fact: the gestures of connection, of support, of honesty, of simple and silly entertainment, of laughter...these are immense, immeasurable moments for me. Fleeting or not, they have left indelible marks. These will replay in my ever growing montage. I am better for it, each day, with a little help from my friends.




Skeptically Yours.




*the Skeptic in me HAS to point out  that the sign on the Dodge says '63, but the car itself is a '68, and that Kevin refers to it as "9 years old" which would have made it a '60.  Continuity aside, it's a DAMNED good scene.  Scriptwriters largely aren't car people. Or apparently..."fact" or "math" people.

What works.

(Blogger is inserting random underlines in my blog. These are not my doing. Ignore, read on, enjoy)

If there's a lesson we can all take from Hollywood, it's that we should just go with what works. This is why every Tom Cruise movie is really all about his hair (its gorgeous...have you noticed?) and his sprinting skills, and every John Cusack movie will feature a scene where Cusack is sad, in the rain. It just works. Directors know this stuff going in, and so if there's a script out there with Tom Cruise in it, he simply must say to his underlings, "wait, where's the running scene? Write that in, and let's have an extra camera just for his hair."


Being at an in-between chapter of my life, I feel like I'm somehow more likely to get unsolicited advice. I've heard just about all of the catch phrases and pick-me-ups aimed at single women over thirty, and I feel like people don't believe me when I say, "no really, I'm good..."

All in all, I'm not bothered by the friendly punches to the shoulder a la "go get 'em, champ" and the advice to "get out there" and "you're still young, you have time," and I wasn't even bothered by the generous offer of semen. Yep...semen, like, "oh, it's it about that time...here, I know how to help." The thing that bothers me the most is when people say, "whatever is meant to happen will happen."

First off, there is no comfort in thinking that your path is all paved out in front of you. I don't like the idea of predestination because it's sick to think that I'm already doomed into some fate that was written for me by a conspirator somewhere in the ether of eternity. I know this is meant as a comforting phrase somewhere along the lines of 'it'll work out in the end."

But it's not. It's putting your faith about the future not on your own decisions, not on your own efforts, but in the idea that we're all coasting across the stage of life hung precariously on puppet strings. I think back to when my cousin and I used to play with Barbie dolls, and even at 9 or 10, commenting on how weird it would be if there were someone invisibly directing our lives as we did with our dolls. Even then it creeped me out, and that feeling never left.

As I get multiples of the "whatever is meant to happen will happen" phrase, I wonder...do people really believe that? Do they allow life, or pursue living?

I can't deny anyone their philosophies on life, and hell, maybe this shit is more scripted than I'd like to believe. However, for right now, I'm going to stubbornly cling to the idea that I'm writing this as I go, relying on the tried-and-true patterns of my own behavior to lead me and guide me out of this cavernous and confusing chapter in a comfortable fashion that works for me.

And now to illustrate that going with what works is an equation for awesome:


 
 
Which leads me to what works for me...which isn't to believe "what ever is meant to happen will happen," to decline any of the offers for baby-making, or to feel like I require anything whatsoever other than my own acceptance of self. 
 
And now, off to watch Say Anything.
 
Skeptically Yours.
 
 
 

Bigskeptic is in Love...

...with Spotify. Tried it?

Since music ranks up there as one of the most potent, poignant, and pervasive (alliteration RULES!) aspects of my life, I think these people have hit the nail on the proverbial (okay, I'm done with the letter "p") head.  Based on the fact that folks like me will buy hundreds and hundreds of dollars of music every year, I think sites like Spotify have the right idea in letting you build playlists and discover artists, essentially test driving your music before you get incredibly hooked and plop down your dough.

The only problem...and it's actually a large one...is that with the free music, I've been building playlists for everything. Most of my memories of major events or major people are tied up in the music from that moment, and sometimes it's absolutely comforting or enjoyable. Sometimes...sometimes it drags me down to wallow in the funk of yesteryear.

Some of the music I found on Spotify is way too personal, as it belongs to an ex of mine's old band. That brings me to think not just of the past, but of past-love fuck-ups that I have made.  You can imagine with that, I've built a LOT of playlists.

I was told once that being consistently the one that walks away from relationships is a major red flag. I would completely agree---if I weren't me, I certainly wouldn't date me. Does that make sense? I mean, I do sort of have a pattern.  I wrote a blog not too long ago....Rage Rage Against the Dying of the Light...and I was damned determined to stop protecting my heart in order to allow myself to feel things, to put myself out there..and blah blah blah.

The inner Skeptic is still winning, folks, because whenever I get the nudge of an emotion trying to peek out and draw attention to itself, I poke it to death until it retreats. Being vulnerable, even for the mere 22 seconds that I gave it a go, is terrifying.  In that small window of time, I think I was more frightened than I had been in my entire life.

It isn't easy, and your humble narrator gets a big, fat "F" in my efforts to release the control and allow myself to feel elation, love, disappointment, heartbreak. I thought I was cruising along okay until I made the mistake of looking backwards, of listening to the music of that one particular ex.   He sings in one track, "I was meant to stay and fight, you were meant to burn out bright, and we were not meant to go quietly into the night."  It was poignant...

Burning out bright---that really means getting the hell out of dodge while everything is still good and perfect, before it starts to fade and temper your memory of it. I have always walked away, minus a few times, at the very peak. The inner skeptic yells "flee! Run! It's about to get shitty!" And of course, I listen.

Still, even with the songs that bum me out, Spotify has become my new best friend, allowing me at least honestly and quietly feel whatever the hell I need to feel, freely, and to choose to share (publish playlists) or keep it to my damn self (private playlists.) For that, I am thankful.

For a taste of some of the tunes I've been listening to, check out some of my playlists on Spotify here:

Grit
Winona
Beach Rd.
DRUMS

Skeptically Yours.

Speechless.

Years ago I stood in my bedroom at my shitty apartment building, St. Tropez (pronounces by all tenants as STRO-PEZZZZ), on the East-of-La Brea-side-of-Hollywood and stared frustrated at my stereo. I was having a very bad day, having miscommunicated my intent drastically with a guy I was dating and ran him off completely. All I wanted was some music and a glass of wine to get me over the loss. Wine: check, music not so much. I was desperately trying to get some Beatles action and the damn stereo blatantly refused.

Instead, it kept jumping to Disc 3. Defeated, I just let it play what it wanted to play. After a moment of sitting there in sulky resistance, I realized the brilliant message the Universe was sending me. The song playing was the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want." I was so struck with the moment that I played it on repeat all night. More wine was involved.

I'm reminded of the vivid "shut up and listen" communication sent by the eternal void because it's happened again today at my workstation on a particularly emotional day, and yes...it's happened with The Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Add to that the fact that I have lost my voice in these last boisterous weeks of socialization...and I think I'm clearly getting a "shut up and listen" message again.

The recurrence of this song in my life is bizarre, especially because I'm not particularly the biggest Rolling Stones fan (I am a fan but they're down on my list quite a bit...). . Here it is though, time and time again frolicking out of my shitty speakers, highlighting the fact that sometimes the wants in life are just curtains, that they hide the truth behind them. How interesting that in both cases, years apart, The Stone's classic makes its appearance during a chapter of love and loss. I guess that means this Skeptic isn't fantastic with relationships, and wanting something doesn't equal "it's right."

So I have been quieted, and I have been reminded that sometimes...you get what you need.





Skeptically Yours.

Faces in the Hall

Its amazing how one little conversation, or one occurrence, can jog your memory into yesteryear like nobody's business. Like everyone else today, I've been thinking about the loss of Davy Jones, and what it means in my life. Generally the Monkees get sidelined as pop-fluff by most real music junkies, and I can't deny that I'm included in that lot today. The Skeptic that I am now values a different set of musical influences, but yesteryear---oh! Yesteryear was a different time. It was a time when I remained glued to the television set as the Monkees' hijinks's worked out hysterically on screen. It was a time that, as a major tomboy, I just wanted to be a boy. Davy Jones' accent and precociousness made my inner girl scream, officially becoming my first crush.

It also became bonding material between a group of my friends in Middle School when we all felt like we didn't fit in, like we were the most awkward human beings ever to have existed. Between us, we knew about the Monkees, and for whatever reason it became "the thing" that both set us apart as goofy and wacky girls, and also a little inner secret. The popular kids were too cool to be moronic Monkees fans, but we were the ones having so much fun, laughing so hard, that even learning chess in social studies class was an adventure because we couldn't stop singing, "I'm Gonna Buy Me a Dog."

I lost the connection to the Monkees and moved wisely on to the Beatles somewhere in middle school, and I also stopped having as much fun. I remember things getting serious all of a sudden, things becoming heavier and life changing at a drastic pace as I discovered politics and injustice in the world. I drifted from "Pleasant Valley Sunday" to "Revolution" and things were never quite the same.

This concept was nailed down in Stand By Me, that classic take on coming-of-age that I watch each and every time it's on cable, no matter what I had planned to do at the time. It was a simple statement that for some didn't hit home, but lingered with me and remains deeply entrenched. The writer says towards the end: "As time went on we saw less and less of Teddy and Vern until eventually they became just two more faces in the halls. That happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of your life like busboys in a restaurant."


It's a simple explanation of growing up, of people and things fading from the forefront. Davy Jones became just another face in the hall for me, along with other semblances of childhood. Like the friends in Stand By Me...he was such an integral part of my childhood and the awakening of my boycraziness. Days like this make me wish I could close my eyes and go backwards to the times when listening to "Daydream Believer" seemed like the most wonderful thing to do...where my view of the world was not yet complicated and warped. When I wasn't so...skeptical.





Skeptically Yours.

Ghost City

The other day, I was having one of those conversations with my mother that made made me say, "listen, I don't want to be rude but I'm going to have to ask us to change topics."  I 100% know what to do if, say, I'm having a great day and I want to ruin it appropriately...I just have to ask, "hey, what's going on in Ohio?"

Los Angeles is like a city in a bubble. Things are less real here, less tragic somehow (unless you count the seemingly countless depressed and bone thin wannabe starlets). As long as you stay on Beverly Blvd (West of La Brea, of course), you're good in your little Los Angeles microchosm. Things are pretty here. Happy. People are still buying luxury cars, Platinum Motorsports is still cranking out ridiculously customized over-priced exotics, and while in the parking lot we call "traffic" at any one time there's Ferrari's to the left of you, Lambo's to the right...(here I am, stuck in the middle...dammit, now that song is stuck in my head.) 

Recently I took a friend on the quintessential Los Angeles drive carving our way along Mulholland. It's become a major tourist attraction, with those stupid chop-roof vans populating a once-quiet scenic vista, but I get it. Everyone wants a look at those homes, sitting in quiet judgement of the rest of us. It's impressive. I typically take Los Angeles visitors to those same spots, and they say mostly the same things. Usually, it's "How much do those houses cost?" A: Your soul, generally.  From the San Fernando Valley vistas, I hear: "Wow, look at this view, what the hell are we looking at?" A: Who cares? It's the valley.* 

For a dose of reality, sometimes, I make the mistake of genuinely caring about the folks that live in the midwest. That shit is as real as it gets...and my poor mother is living smack-dab inside a town that is dying around her.  There aren't any jobs, people have no money, and crime is getting overwhelming. They'll steal your shit without even thinking twice about it---and then sell it for food, and toilet paper (those assholes!! my iPod!)

It seems surreal, then, driving up to Mulholland and climbing up the stairs that overlook the Hollywood Bowl and downtown LA.  I heard tourists bitching from the summit of the hill that it was overcast and they couldn't get an amazing shot of the city, and I laughed so hard to myself that people moved away from my general area. I was not laughing at them, really, (okay, maybe a little...), because as I looked out at Los Angeles shrouded in a haze, a snake of brakelights slithering up the 101, I thought "that's so appropriate." 

Los Angeles doesn't really exist as a city---its boundaries are as hazy and undefined as the people that call it home.  We exist in a dream state, where passing Aston Martins parked on the street is as common as Chevrolets in other parts of the country.  If the "reality" of other parts of the country is that people will break the law in order to feed their families, we certainly have an alternate reality here. Its easy to think that all of LA is existing in that dream state, but the haze around the city contains the same secrets of poverty and hopelessness as any other place. Its just that we're better versed, somehow, of letting those elements exist as ghosts, just below the general rhythm of the city.

So I like for people up there overlooking this dichotomous city to see the ghostliness, the un-reality of it all, and the fact that really, the haze-obscured LA they see up here is the very most realistic of any vista they'll have the opportunity to view.

Skeptically Yours.



**I live in the valley

Mending

Some of you don't know this, but now that I have sold my motorcycle, I will tell you a dirty little secret.  Once upon a time, Bigskeptic was a dumb, dumb rider and crashed that poor little sucker.  My bike was a 2009 Moto Guzzi V7C...and it was at the same time one of the loves of my life, and also a very bad decision. I bought the damned thing based on an emotional attachment with the look, feel, sound...instead of analytically and logically.  It was the romance of the bike, the Italian-ness, how unique it was, the fact that it was mainly hand-built. I loved that damn thing. It was gorgeous. It handled like an Italian bike should...crisp and forgiving but agile.


It also handles curbs and sliding across concrete rather well, too.

The Guzzi was healed entirely in about the same amout of time as it took me.

I'm reminded of my Guzzi romance because on Tuesday I was rear ended in my CT, which pissed off my previous whiplash injury from the Guzzi crash.  I spent Valentine's Day with cops and EMTs and nurses and doctors and xray techs...and honestly, my crash/police assistance/ambulance ride/hospital ranks right up there with some of my previous VDay experiences. 

I'm a little stoved up, and my neck is still pretty sore, but I'm alright. You'd think that after so many injuries from sports and bikes and being clumsy...wrists, ankles, knees, hips, neck, etc, that I would be more likely to sit back and take inventory and decide in Animal Farm terms: Two Wheels Bad Four Wheels Good.  While my first motorized love will always be the four wheeled type, I can't stop thinking of life on only two.

Ya see, motorcycles scare me.  They do---honestly, I have a deep reverence for them, a slight fear of what they are capable of doing both to your body and to your adrenaline. Just like everyone else, I know people that were killed on bikes. Some of them were doing impossibly stupid shit, and some of them were just cruising along.  I tend to be of the cruiser variety on a bike, and have zero daredevil temptation. I don't want to be owned by fear, but I'm also not going to tempt fate.

My desire for a bike started after reading "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." The author, Pirsig, says: “To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.”  We say the same thing time and again---that it's not the destination but the journey. I see so many people on a terribly boring journey day to day, traveling within these safe little boundaries they've defined for themselves. I've hurt myself along the way, and I hate to scare those that worry about me, but I do believe I will continue on the side of the mountain without as much regard to the top.  I will always think more with my heart than my head politically, in purchases, in love, and of course---with my cars and bikes.

Skeptically Yours.

Acceptable loss.

If you haven't noticed, I have several things that I really love.  Passions...you know, the stuff that really moves you, makes you feel, makes you smile, makes you mad...

I have plenty of passion. It's actually one of my biggest flaws/best traits.  Passion has led me into a lot of trouble, falling in love with people or things that would hurt me, haunt me.  It's also had a positive effect of filling me up completely, until I feel like I could burst open at the seams.  J.M. Barrie said that fairies could only feel one emotion at a time, because they were so small that it filled them and overwhelmed them.  Tinkerbell was so full of jealous rage that she attempted to murder Wendy (why was this left out of the Disney Version? It would have been so much more watchable!) ...and while I've never felt QUITE like that, I understand how overwhelming the feelings can be when you're confronted with your passions.  Plus, I'm small, so I relate better than some. 


Also, I have fairy wings.

Mine's a concise list: music, animals, literature, cars. 

And when one of them appears to be under threat, I have the habit of jumping on my soapbox, taking up arms, and shouting, "I'll kill you Wendy! You bitch!"  Figuratively, of course.

This time around, I haven't done much jumping, and just accepted that to be happy, I have to lose some of the things that I thought I really wanted. In this case, it has to do with my Nova, which is entering Iteration #10 or #11 (can't remember...) after multiple rebuilds and phases and destruction.  I thought I wanted an LS3 and a 4L60E transmission (layman's terms for my not-car savvy readers...bad ass engine and transmission)...but I wasn't willing to trade my happiness and freedom. Staying in my cage meant a Corvette drive train. Leaving meant my plain old Disco Nova in her stock form: slow.

So I'll take slow. I'll take it, because at least I'll be able to jump in my POS and cruise off without being told it's too loud, it attracts too much male attention, it's not safe.  It may be/do all of those things, but I think of something else that J.M. Barrie said: "Our life is a book to which we add daily, until suddenly we are finished, and then the manuscript is burned.”


Before my manuscript is burned, for Christ's sake, I want to listen to all the music I can, rescue all the animals I can, read all the books I can, and drive that old, slow Nova with the windows down and the sun on me as much as I can.  There's freedom in those passions, and to preserve that, I'll take the other losses. 



My slow, rusty, off-year Nova. I know you can't deal with the level of awesome, so I kept the picture small.

 Skeptically Yours.

Assuming your responsibility.

Some human beings are amazing, wondrous creations of light and goodness.

Now that I've spent my positivity for the day, I'll get skeptical. Some days I wade through the tidepool of mankind's arrogant, selfish, fuck-you-ism and feel like I can barely pull my feet out of the muck at the bottom.  Mostly it's when I'm cleaning up messes that other people leave, namely animals left to die at the overpopulated shelters in the city of Los Angeles. 

On Thursday of last week, I hesitantly dragged myself into the East Valley Shelter in Van Nuys to video a cat for a potential adopter. It's the easiest way to get these poor, wretched animals out of the hellhole cages, and so at times, I find myself trying to unsee what I see in there.  Thursday just wasn't my day, because as I walked back and forth with a volunteer trying to find "Mistletoe" the Christmas present that "didn't work out," I couldn't help but notice a little black dog that was noticing me.

"She's staring at you," the volunteer noticed.  "Shut up," I responded. 

After going back and forth five more times, it was clear that this little dog WAS actually staring at me, not making a peep.  The other dogs around her are going nuts, barking, growling, howling, hiding, wagging, pouncing---it's like a kid's book full of dog verbs, but without a positive ending.  I tried to ignore her, even as I saw a staffer pull her from her kennel mournfully. I knew I shouldn't ask, but I questioned, "Is she getting adopted?" He looked at me, his eyes deeply sorrowful, and all he could do was mutter, "no."  Still, I felt that I should ignore her.



Bonham



Here's why:  I have two dogs already, Frito La Chihu-hu and Bonham Von Rotterdane, both of them from shelters, both pulled hours before they died by lethal injection. One of them from Riverside, one of them from North Central Los Angeles.  They were both complete pains in the ass when I adopted them, untrained, sick, scared, scarred...and it tookmonths of treatment and training and patience beyond belief and lots of lots of money, don't forget that, to make them into the fabulous, amazing, gentle, sweet, and confident dogs they are today. 



Frito



In between the two I have now, there was Dexy Stormcloud the German Shepherd---who I adopted as a senior (left to die at the shelter because she had a tumor growing in her stomach and infected sores on her elbows) so she wouldn't have to die on a cold steel table.  After a year of treats and training and medical treatment, lots of love, a warm bed, and toys...she got to peacefully pass under her favorite tree in my backyard...with her head on my lap.  I'm not even going into a discussion about the cats. There have been many, many cats, and several foster dogs including Bowie BooBoo, the pitt bull/great dane mix, Squishilina Dandelion the jindo/husky mix, and Berkeley Voodoo the whatever in god's name he was. Most important of all was Circe Taurus Izaboo, who taught me how to be a nurse for 12 years, served as my first lesson in rescue, and opened up a lifelong hole in my wallet.

These dogs were dropped off to die by their owners, becoming the taxpayers' responsibility. Then, by some twist of fate, they became MY responsibility...to clean up after you, whoever you are, with time and money and love.  I took over your responsibility to these animals, and it makes me sick for mankind.



Joplin enjoys her freedom.



I now have three dogs, because as I saw the little black Am Staff/lab mix trot happily next to the shelter staffer, completely oblivious to what came next, I couldn't ignore her anymore. She came home with me that day instead of being turned into fertilizer for our public parks and medians.  I try not to think of the ones I left behind, because it breaks my heart. I think of my new baby, Janis Joplin Baby Pibbles.

(Yes, you may have noticed the ridiculous names. I'm sure the people at Avid Microchipping get a huge guffaw at these monikers...and quite frankly, most days I  just need a good laugh.)

One more animal lives because I took responsibility for someone else's bad decisions. I'm not sainting myself here, because I could do more and help more and give more. I just find myself skeptically retreating towards the back of my kennel like an abandoned dog that has given up hope in the human race...wondering why the fuck-you-ism has become so pervasive, and why so many people feel it's okay to have everyone else clean up after them. 

Skeptically Yours.



Rage, rage, against the dying of the light!

Dylan Thomas didn't heed his own advice, as he drank himself night after night into a stupor at the White Horse Tavern...mercilessly kicking his liver when it was down.  He died a young man, and while he went out of this world with a host of amazing work and was a celebrated artist, this skeptic thinks mainly of all of the waste in losing someone so amazing and so young before he could really finish his work. 

Regardless of the waste, the loss, and the sadness in losing someone that quite clearly had something to say, his last poem to his dying father became not only the Villanelle that really mattered but also an amazing life philosophy that poor Dylan didn't get to embrace himself, but I will.

I sat in the pub where Dylan drank himself to death, had a beer, and while looking out the window to the West Village street, pondered all the ways I have and haven't lived that philosophy.  I have lived safely, protecting my own heart above experience (shutting people out, walking away from love). I have lived recklessly, inviting death (motorcycles, fast cars, a host of bad decisions).  Neither one of those lifestyles work out in the long run, because you're either shielded from all experiences that matter, or too reckless to notice the opportunity.

In order to live fully and rage against the dying of the light, to embrace the fullness of life until there is no energy left in me, it seems that a shedding of the protections and safety of being walled-in have to come down.  I know that heartbreak is a natural side effect of vulnerability, and I wouldn't be a good skeptic without asking myself, "What the hell am I thinking?" So I ask myself...and I think that too many people now aren't raging against the dying of the light, be it loss of personal liberties, be it the loss of themselves, whatever it means for them to lose the light...too many people are walking into the darkness without a single yelp.

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Skeptically Yours.

My Last Weekend as a Blonde

Changes have been running through my life at a rapid pace, and I've been rolling with the punches.  One thing I'm not skeptical about, (surprised, aren't you?) is change. Change has always been something I eagerly embrace, and so in these crazy days of change after change, I feel like finally I understand where I stand on most issues, most of my desires, and many of my flaws.  Change has recently brought on a huge appreciation of freedom...not "freedom" in terms of a relationship/no relationship, but "freedom" in the sense of making my own decisions, and sort of just opening up the throttle. 

This weekend, in Austin TX, I spent my time with a treasured, amazing friend...running the Texas roads in a 412 hp Mustang GT we named "Melba".  While I taught her how to impress guys by saying stuff like, "That's a good note for stock exhaust" and shooting a .357, I was subconsciously learning a few things behind the scenes about myself.

I prefer to be the supporter.  I loved teaching her to shoot and seeing the target get shredded just left of center as she learned to breathe properly, I loved hearing her nail the rolling joke about the Mustang's exhaust every time I put my foot down.  I kept hoping there would come a moment, somewhere in an Austin parking lot, when she'd get to publicly use it.  No dice this time, but we'll keep trying.

So as the changes keep coming, I'm resorting to a tried and true of method of getting through them as gracefully as I can...by being myself. Out with the blonde! Out with the insecurities!  Bring on the Led Zeppelin Tee Shirt, the Converse, the Brunette!

And in with the loyal, faithful, and fun Bigskeptic I used to be. 

Lastly, I learned that when in doubt of self, a long stretch of highway in a fast car can cure the blues most quickly...

What's that Mary?  It's got a good note for stock exhaust??  It sure does.

Skeptically Yours.

Melba.

View from a Classic Car

Everything looks different when it's painted in hues of classic Americana, with the visceral feel of a 4 speed shifter in your hand, simple but adequate brakes, and the type of suspension that allows you to both feel the road and float a little at high speeds. Even the people inside are cast in a different light. 

I spend a lot of my time in a very new, very nice car as my daily driver. It's equipped with 11 airbags, navigation, back up camera, Sirius XM Radio, etc...etc...and it's fabulous in almost every way. New cars have their place in our world, to be sure, and I can't say that I don't understand people with kids wanting the newest and safest car to keep those children safe.

But...

I'm skeptical about the real necessity of more technology in cars, really, because it's making us worse drivers.  We're use to our electronannies keeping us on course, but sometimes even the smartest cars can't correct the whopping mistakes we make as drivers.  I see it every day...people jump in cars as if it's as easy to pilot as a tricycle, and they expect to navigate the highways and traffic-congested roads without killing themselves or others.

But folks, it's not that easy.  Driving a car, depth perception, and multitasking are way harder than the average person actually believes it to be.  The car does so much of the work for us that we're virtually lulled into a auto-pilot mode where muscle memory of dealing with emergencies is virtually catatonic, and therefore makes it harder for humans to snap to a quick and accurate reaction when shit does hit the fan.

Tom Vanderbilt has done exhausting work on traffic and the human experience behind the wheel of the automobile, which he filed neatly into a little book called "Traffic: Why We Drive the Way we Do (And What it Says About Us).  He contends, as I do, that while electronannies may sometimes save our hides, that they are creating a new breed of brainless driver.  He says in an interview, "We’re definitely already in the era of "driver-assist" automobiles, with blind-spot warnings and adaptive cruise control and the like. As people who study automation have noted, these "semiautomated" processes come with very particular challenges — drivers may relax their vigilance, thinking everything is fine thanks to the car’s technology, but something might happen that actually confounds the car’s systems, and suddenly the driver is 'out of the loop'."

Beyond the idea of reusing a material or product until there's virtually nothing left (an idea I am married to...see my sweaters for reference, filled with holes and faded but beloved until they no longer function) I believe that people need more hard training in real automobiles before we're allowed loose on the city streets.  If we choose to drive these vehicles with so many gizmos to protect us, that's fine, but we should first know how to protect ourselves out there.  Relying too heavily on technology to save us means eventually we'll morph into the fat-can-barely-walk-virtual-addicts from the WALL-E movie...floating along in our isolation, content to be lazy and useless while machines do our thinking.  Where is the stimulation in that? Where's the joy?

For me, I abide by the reuse principal, and I abide the fact that when I'm out on the road, I am mostly in charge of my safety by knowing my car, knowing the laws, and knowing how to create a defensive bubble around myself.  Accidents happen, sure...I'm just convinced that 90% of the accidents happening right now aren't "accidents" at all but the product of over-estimating ones driving prowess, distractions, and just not understanding physics of the road and that an object in motion tends to stay in motion.

When I drive a classic, everything is up to me...how hard I press a set of manual brakes, my input to the steering wheel, the force of my right foot on the pedal.  I appreciate the simplicity of the classic car, the cues it gives you as feedback in the exhaust note, the vibrations, even the smells. It talks to you, works with you, it becomes your partner in this adventure on the road instead of your new-car babysitter, smacking your hand with VSC, TRAC, VDIM, EBD, etc, when you screw up.

The world is framed for us in all kinds of ways...through the helmet on the motorcycle, through the window at the office, through the windshield of your car.  I think these frames shape your perception, your reaction to and with the world though the frame.  The frame of the windshield on a 50's, 60's (some) 70's car says, "put the windows down and listen to me, listen to my cues, and your view will be larger than the frame."

And it's true. My frame of reference expands every time I let my heart experience the thrill of really driving, really driving a real car, really doing it all by myself.

Old video of the Nova on an outing, taken by a patient passenger.

Skeptically Yours.

Home.

From the "shit going on in Bigskeptic's Life" files....


In this era of foreclosures, squatters, etc, the very notion of home has been questioned, compromised, and forced into having been redefined.  People with families now regularly live out of their cars rather than the traditional 3 bedroom/2 bathroom set up that generations of people came to view as "home."  I think my own definition has always been fluid, because based on my past, home was a travel trailer in a storage yard, a double wide trailer, a traditional house, a monolithic antique semi-mansion, tiny apartments, relatives couches, a best friend's floor, the road, among other things. I didn't understand people's attachment with "home" as a location. Still don't. Never will.

The right to your home has also been attacked, and it's come down to a judgement call by the bank or corporation invoking Eminent Domain in most cases, minus one I can think of where the police officers asked to remove a woman from her home simply couldn't abide because she was 103 years old and on her deathbed. She skirted eviction because the law enforcers saw a glaring indecency and decided against acting on their orders. You can read the story here: http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/103-year-old-woman-1245741.html 

So home is an very personal thing, obviously, and carries with it a multitude of meanings. Right now, "home" to me is a point of contention, because I find that in most of my heartaches there came some sort of discrepancy between the matter of a home, what makes a home, or where "home" is located. The amount of leavings that I have endured in my life adds up to watching a lot of taillights disappear in the distance, disappear away from my current definition of home, away from me.  I always understood the necessity of every leaving, despite the sadness of watching as someone you love leaves, because I feel the same draw to the road, to whatever's next, to making your way in your renewed life elsewhere. 

It's very American to set out on one's own in discovery of self, which is why American Literature is teeming with tales about heading West, heading to college, and essentially to steal from Thomas Wolfe...to never be able to go home again.  There's truth in that, because once you leave that definition of "home" from your childhood, you have moved past a very basic illusion we humans have developed...and that's the notion that "home" is a place.

As we're collectively fighting the banks, watching Friends and family losing their houses, we seem to be fighting for more than a place to live, but the idea that home is how we define it, and by taking away our homes there is a much larger infraction occurring. It's personal with us, because so few of us stay in proximity to our birthplaces anymore.  It's not just the loss of a house, but the loss of that self discovery that said, "I found this place. I made it my home."

As I sadly prepare to once again watch figuratively as taillights disappear into the distance, I have to question why my own feet have been planted for so long. Am I living up to my gypsy roots? Maybe having stayed in one place for so long has made sedentary the quest for constant self-discovery.  Maybe the next set of taillights to disappear over the horizon should be my own...

Skeptically Yours.

Beware The Rock Polisher

In 1988, I was eight years old. The political events shaping the world were still outside of my reality, my favorite band was Def Leppard, favorite movie was  "The Lost Boys" and the love of my life was Dan Cortez from MTV Sports.  Things were very, very different back then, as I still had a few shreds of innocence and was still in all technical facets a child. You'd think that I would have changed quite a bit since then, and as much as I now realize that Def Leppard was pop hair metal without substance, you'll catch me listening to them every now and again, and let's just say the season of "What I Like About You" starring Dan Cortez has a permanent place on my DVR. My favorite show? No. Do I look at Lo Mein and recite the lines, "Worms....you're eating worms, Michael" every single time? Yes, yes I do.

I feel like I've been one of the few left out of the smoothing process, left out of our societal coming of age ritual of rubbing off the sharp edges and creating this "well-rounded individual" that is supposed to fit in better with our norms and customs.  I feel, therefore, lucky. See, the sharp edges that  make us who we are...stubbornness, introverted-ness, super competitiveness, super sensitivity, those are rubbed down to more acceptable levels and society attempts to fill the percentage of change from your rough edges that have been filed down with more socially acceptable things.

Back to 1988, when I was 8.  I had this strange epiphany whilst in my friend's room as we played with a rock tumbler that was meant to take plain looking, average rocks from your back yard and turn them into pretty, polished little rocks that you could collect.  I realized that as these little pebbles and rocks tumbled around in there, they emerged looking prettier, being more sought after perhaps, but that it didn't change the core of the rock or what the rock actually was.  Even at eight, I started seeing some relevance, some comparison between what we do to each other and what that rock tumbler was doing to the stones we had gathered.

My friend was Emmett.  I'm not going to string this out or try to go all Politically Correct about Emmett....he was defined as a nerd in strict 1988, third grade terms. He wore super thick glasses and just never really fit in with the other kids, who were all, at that time, already joining the cliques and small subcultures of third grade life. It happens earlier now, I'm sure, people segregating into neatly defined units of class of popularity...

But Emmett was my friend because he was awesome, and as it turned out, most of my friends through the years would be judged on the criteria of whether or not they were awesome people and not to which clique they belonged.  It probably explains why my illustrious group of besties includes a whopping 4 or 5 people. Emmett is still counted among my friends, as well as some other fabulous people that stood out from the crowd. 

I look back now, and I revisit some of the sort-friends I acquired in high school and college and realize that the relationships didn't last because they bought into the well-rounded individual bullshit and submitted themselves to the societal rock polisher. They allowed school and church and parents to alter them in ways to make them more presentable, more acceptable in society. These highly pliable people learned how to fit in, to blend.

I never quite learned that lesson, maybe because people inherently saw that I would break the tumbler, or that I would come out broken into bits, or whatever. The point is that I missed the tumbler altogether and I am thankful. I am thankful that I still think in pre-polished terms, and that being part of the social clique of those that were polished is outside of my desires.

We go to school, go to church, do group activities and we're told on a consistent pattern what good and bad behavior is, what to think, what to do...and yes, I understand that people need leadership and guidance, but when you really look at what we're telling our kids, teaching our kids, feeding our kids....it's shaking them around together in the polisher, not always teaching them to think for themselves or to be skeptical, critical, of the "wisdom" they receive.

I'm not remotely comparing myself to the high-brow, damned-smart individuals that also missed the reshaping and smoothing out...but there's a long list of them. Many of the people that are really good at one thing and make that one thing their life's work change the world, but what would have happened to the invention of the light bulb, the invention of the battery, the discovery of antibiotics, etc, etc infinity, if the people behind these world-changing items were more interested in fitting in being "well rounded," and spent more time trying to sheer off the rough edges that made them work without fatigue? That made them study, or practice, or read until they mastered that area? We wouldn't have masters of craft like Roddenberry, Hawking, Kaku, Newman, Kubrick...these were people that never quite "fit in" because that very superficial goal didn't matter to them. And those that missed the polisher that aren't necessarily changing the world are at least making their own path-off-the-beaten-path and living with passion.

When I think back to who I was at 8, I see more similarities than differences. I was not easily attached to people, they had to earn my trust. Once they did that, I put them in my heart forever. I was not interested in bullshitting with people, and I didn't give in to laughing at jokes to be polite. I made decisions impetuously. I loved music, and movies, I was quick to judge, stubborn as hell, and I loved animals. I analyzed content carefully, I had a great memory, and above all things, I wanted to be a writer. I am very much still that person, in all of those ways, the good and bad. It's why I have been remotely successful in a very self-made manner. I have matured, learned, grown up...sure...but the nature and content of my character is intact.

The societal rock polisher of instilling a pre-packed mentality yields a lot of the mob-mentality that I defame in a previous post. Group-think culture is one that is bound to rush headlong together into self-destruction.

I will be left behind from that cultural careening into devastation, as I have been left behind from many of the group-decisions in the past. I'm okay with that, because the others left behind are those that I am actually interested in having around.

Skeptically Yours.